Becoming a quadriplegic is one of the worst injuries imaginable. Anyone who has ever stepped on a board or been involved in an action sport has likely experienced some brief moment of repose where they’ve thought, ‘What if that happened to me?’ It’s the kind of fear we push deep down, pretend it doesn’t exist and pray some like that never happens to us. Thankfully incidences of paralysis in snowboarding seem few and far between. But what’s even more rare is to see someone recover from it.

In response to the Get Over It feature in the Winter issue Jodie Thring from Australia sent in the story of her struggle to return to snowboarding after a fall left her paralyzed from the shoulders down. Against the odds Jodie got all Uma Thurman in Kill Bill on it and recovered. Today she even competes, something she attributes to the power of the mind. “I am living proof that visualization can help repair the body,” says Jodie. Here is her story. —Gerhard Gross

I am currently Australia's only disabled snowboard athlete and the only quadriplegic snowboard athlete in the world. I learned to snowboard in Whistler in 1996 and never looked back; I'd found my passion in life. I moved to Thredbo when I got home so that snowboarding could be a part of my daily life. In July 2005 I broke my neck snowboarding at my home resort. I fell really hard on my coccyx after failing to ride out of a Boardslide on a box. It was a really random fall, which instantly paralyzed me from the shoulders down. I woke from an induced coma 10 days later to be told I was a C5 quadriplegic and it would be very unlikely that I would ever walk again. I'd compressed my C4, split my C5 in half and chipped my C6 with splits in my spinal cord. I couldn't talk because tubes were down my throat to assist me with breathing. I tried to ask my mom for a pen so that I could write my questions down, not realizing I wouldn't be able to hold a pen let alone write.

Jodie Thring [second from left] with fellow adaptive athletes.

I was moved from Intensive Care to the Acute Spinal ward a few days later and there began feelings of anger, denial, depression, loss and fear. How dare they tell me I was not going to walk again? Three months later I was ready for my first day of rehab. I was really positive and determined that I would walk out of hospital. It began with the doctor coming in every day for the next three months pricking me all over with a pin to see if I regained any sensation. She'd also ask me to try and move my toe. I'd lie in bed thinking, 'Move your toe Jodes, move your toe', trying to get my brain to send the messages down that were being blocked. Around the three month mark she came in one day, did the usual pin-prick and asked me to move my toe. I couldn't see it as I wasn't allowed to be moved for 14 weeks, or feel it, but my toe moved. Just a small flicker, but it moved. She made me do it three times to make sure it wasn't a spasm. From there I started to get movement in parts I couldn't feel and feeling in parts I couldn't move. The spasms started to kick in, which is part and parcel for a spinal cord injury.

After 14 weeks they sat me up for the first time and prepared my new motorized wheelchair, still not confident I would walk again. I told them I would be walking out of hospital and they said, “Jodie, we know you're really positive but we don't want you to be too optimistic". That just made me more determined to prove them wrong.

Shortly after I was moved into the rehab ward and that's when the depression really kicked in. On the first day in rehab they tried to teach me how to transfer into my chair so that I could independently get in and out of my bed, chair, etc. I couldn't even sit up on my own or push with my hands let alone lift my body. I burst into tears. Reality kicked in along with depression but I was still determined to do everything I could.

Like a baby I learned from scratch how to move again (except for the crawling, haha). About a month later I was able to stand up without falling in a heap and took my first step with a frame. After five months in the spinal ward I walked out of hospital with a granny frame. A month later I was able to walk unassisted. I was able to manage most things on my own by May 2006 and moved out on my own again, but stayed close to the hospital as my rehab continued two days a week for the next three years. I am now classed as a C5 Incomplete (standing) Quadriplegic. Nothing functions properly from C5 down. It's a lot easier to snowboard than it is to walk but I'm grateful every day for every step I can take, to be able to clean my own teeth, brush my own hair and wipe my own arse.

In July 2006, just shy of a year after my accident, I got back on my snowboard. I had been planning on spending the 2005/06 winter season in Japan so in January of 2007 I went snowboarding in Japan. In February I attended the first Canadian Adaptive Snowboard Program with the CSF (Canadian Snowboard Federation). There I met a guy who was working with Adaptive Action Sports in the U.S. and he invited me to go to Northstar-at-Tahoe for USASA Nationals at the end of March. In July I moved back to Thredbo and learned to drive Pisten Bully's. I had wanted to be a snow groomer and was about to start learning just before I had my accident. I went back to the USASA Nationals again the following year at Copper Mountain, skipped last season since I was broke.

This winter I had the opportunity to be coached for the first time so I'm living in Park City, Utah training with Team Utah. We are trying really hard to get snowboarding into the Paralympics for 2014, which will hopefully be a SBX event. The WSF (World Snowboard Federation) have started to hold SBX Adaptive World Cup's, which will be held in conjunction with Nationals at Mont Tremblant at the end of March, Copper Mountain, Colorado April 4^th to 11^th, then in Cardrona New Zealand at the end of July. We compete at Nationals in SBX, Slalom, GS, Slopestyle and Pipe. There's a long way to go as there is no classification process in place just yet. I'm competing against amputees who have full strength in their body, no paralysis, no spasticity and prosthetics specifically designed for snowboarding. It's going to take time but it will happen. —Jodie Thring

Jodie would like to thank the Canadian Snowboard Federation for their support of Adaptive Snowboarding.